Page 74 of Of Skulls Of Shackles

I stitched her. Then there were thirty-seven mothers.Thirteenleft.

The haze stole my focus, and I fixed my unseeing eyes on the barren mysteries beyond. Would all mothers make it?

I felt that could not be so. Something would force me to enter the haze, and an absent mother or two was surely the “something.”

I set the needle and thread beside the last mother, and played with the humming stitch at my waist that she was responsible for.Grounded. Seeing.I could rely on this mother.

“I must return,” I announced.

No one answered. They had told me what I must do. What else was there to say?

Three nights and four days spent through the grave while recovering from the conquering of King Raise, and then conquering him had cost me four nights too. My, but what might have occurred in that time?

I took a tumble through hellebores and climbed out into a world of color and life.

A shiver shook me because I felt the weight of the place I had just left more with each passing night. Something terrible awaited me there.

A hand appeared in my vision. A chalky hand, so very large, that I knew.

I took See’s hand, and he helped me stand.

“You were gone for many nights,” he said.

I looked up into his eyes, and his sigh was audible with mine as our hearts synced. This was not a feeling to disrupt—such power.This must be cherished… though perhaps that was too warm a sentiment. This must beacknowledged.And so we did acknowledge the symbol of our destiny for however long passed.

The clanging of Picket’s hammer broke through our stare eventually, and when the stare was over, I was left more unsettled than ever.

Because four kings had demanded my focus lately. Four, but not five. One king had been on his best claiming behavior, apparently “reassured by what he could see.”

King See was too… agreeable.

Why?Luckily for him, as ancient as I was—more ancient than him even—I did not have the capacity to figure out queendomandfigure out him. In fact, he was a larger mystery than anything else.

I might spend my entire existence understanding him.

I smiled, and he tilted my chin higher, twisting my face side to side to better see all the torsion of my lips, no doubt.

“What amuses a queen who is now more powerful than a king?” he murmured.

“Have I told you that love is so… detestable? I know you are fond of the notion of warm things, but I am afraid to tell you that I cannot love you. You must learn not to love me, or we are doomed, and I am certain what we share must transcend love.”

“I am but a weak king, though,” he answered.

I narrowed my gaze, certain that he teased me.

The lift of the corner of his mouth confirmed it. “If you cannot love me, what will you feel?”

Now there was the conundrum.Therewas the predicament. My whisper trembled. “I cannot say. Knowing that love is not strong enough for us is one thing, but choosing to feel other things while denying love always… how can it be done?”

He broke our stare at last. “A king hopes that a more ancient queen will see the way because he sees everything to do with her in dribs and drabs.”

“You have not connected our destiny?”

“Our destiny is ever clear. We are for each other and forever so.”

“What of the rest? Of fate and path and immortality?”

King See did not answer, and my unsettled feelings heightened. He knew something. He must surely plot heartbreak. “Tell me, See. Shall I survive the pain you seek to deliver me?”

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